Changes Are Coming

Summer is over, for me. The weather still may be warm, but my "year off" will end Wednesday morning when my MBA program starts. While I am still hoping to dedicate a certain number of hours per week to the car project, it will likely be on the order of 3 to 5 hours, rather than the 30 or so I have been managing to put in for the last several months. Things will clearly have to slow down and proceed in a different fashion. It has been good while it lasted!

I made good progress on the car last week. After priming the underside of the car, I returned at the beginning of last week to clean and prime the top (inside) of the floor pan, the rear seat patches, the inside of the battery box/trunk, and the engine bay area. Painting with the DP40 went much quicker this time and I used less paint as I got the paint gun dialed in more properly. Let me tell you, the bottom of the car has plenty of paint on it!

The next day, I set to work sealing pretty much every overlapping metal seam on the car. I used a heavy caulk made by U-POL on the underside, applied with an air-powered caulk gun and then smoothed with a finger (wear gloves and a respirator; many seam sealers contain isocyanates, just like paint). On the inside, I used a brushable sealer made by Wurth. As far as I can gather from reading, coupled with my own firsthand experience back when disassembling the car, the inside seams were not originally sealed. In fact, there are many seams on the underside of the car that I chose to seal that I don't think were sealed originally. Original appearance be damned, in this case. The less chance of getting moisture in a seam, the less chance of rust coming back to bite this car any time in the near future. Underneath, the seam sealer is all getting painted or undercoated anyway, and inside, everything will be carpeted. The changes will not be visible. The front closing panels presented an opportunity to apply lots of caulk. Inside the wheel well, the top of the front logitudinal closing panel slopes backwards, away from the tire, and forms a natural "shelf" for crud and moisture to sit and rot the panel. Over the years, this area gets packed with wet debris and the result is a hole in the fender just like I had to repair. Porsche should have curved this panel forwards, towards the tire! For whatever reason, they didn't, but I modified the situation slightly. As suggested in Jim Kellogg's 356 Restoration book, I applied almost an entire caulk tube of sealer at the top of each front closing panel and formed the caulk into a sloping area that hopefully will keep future debris from collecting. I finished caulking last Wednesday and realized I still had quite a bit of free time left, so I began the undercoating process. Using Wurth Underbody Seal, I coated each front wheel well, the outside of the battery box, and the floor pan. Then I ran out. The undercoating gun, which sort of siphons the product out of the can and mixed it in a spatter-pattern with air, shoots the stuff like it is going out of style. I don't want to apply it too thickly either, because I know removing it for a future repair, heavens forbid, will be a pain in the ass. Just enough to give a proper vintage-looking appearance. The real purpose of undercoating is to provide a bit of stone-chip protection, and sound deadening. Modern sound deadening panels work just as well, and I'll be applying these to the floor pan and seating areas. 356 GT cars had no undercoat at all, just satin black paint on the underside, to save weight. I spent last Thursday as well as today working on the transmission. Here's a job I had neglected for well over a year! If I am ever going to get the car back on its own suspension, I reasoned, I have to finish this job.

When the transmission came out, it was hard to recognize it was even made of aluminum because it was coated with such a thorough, thick layer of goo. Years of oil and mud mixed together to form a layer of crud that encased everything. After first removing it, back in my own garage, I made a half-hearted attempt to clean it with some Gunk engine cleaner and a toothbrush. It didn't go very quickly and I quit.

Now, I decided to tackle it again. First, I thought about pressure washing it, and while that would be good if I was going to completely tear it down, I ruled it out because I didn't want water sneaking in through the axles and rusting things internally. My remaining choice was to use cleaner with various scraping tools and a scotchbrite pad. I chose Gunk citrus-based engine cleaner, which doesn't have Kerosene in it like regular Gunk and thus doesn't smell half as vile. Plus, it works really well! I recommend it.

I put the transmission on end on a thick piece of cardboard, and then covered it with the gunk. Then I set to work scrubbing. After I had done a bunch of scrubbing, I would wash the case down with a garden sprayer filled with water. Then I would repeat the process. It took about 4 or 5 iterations of these steps to get the transmission case fairly clean.

Today, I took the clean(er) transmission outside to remove the axle tubes. After the case was clean, the tubes sure stuck out like a sore thumb. I removed the axle tubes by undoing the nuts holding the axle side covers on either side, and then putting a 3-arm puller on the end of the tube, against the axle. Tightening the puller pulled the tube with bearing off the axle with minimal fuss. It was then easy to remove the roller bearing from the axle tube.

I cleaned up the outer bearings, and they sound and work OK, but at this point, after all the work, it seems to make sense to replace them. I had Chuck order a pair that will hopefully arrive tomorrow. I pressure-washed the axle tubes, and then cleaned the gasket surfaces with a 3M roloc gasket cleaner disc on my angle die grinder. I didn't bead blast the tubes, but I guess I could of. Sort of rushing, I suppose. I quickly wire-brushed the tubes, and then wiped them down with Ospho in preparation for painting. A quick degreasing, and then I painted them with a new paint: Hammerite/Rustoleum "Rust Cap." It's a nice gloss black paint that I found at the hardware store that seems to be very hard, at least as hard as the Rustoleum Appliance Epoxy I've used previously. Speaking of spray paint, I've now used Rustoleum Epoxy, Rustoleum Enamel, Dupli-Color Engine Enamel, and Hammerite. It will be interesting to see which one turns out to be the most durable finish.

Tomorrow I'll re-assemble the transmission, and I should have time to tackle putting new bearings into the front wheel hubs. Then I think I may bead blast the steel wheels and get them ready for going to the powder coater. I really can't do any more body work until I either get the replacement nose or get the car off the rotisserie.

Underbody In Primer

As I had hoped, I was able to get most all of the underside of the car back in epoxy primer today. There are a few spots I missed, and I ran out of time to finish them, but I have a one week window to recoat, so I will be able to do some touch-ups at the beginning of next week.

I started out after getting to the shop this morning by getting the car tilted up well on its side on the rotisserie. I don't care what else the rotisserie has helped me accomplish up to this point, just having it for the painting task made it worth it! This made access to the bottom of the floor pan and battery box super easy.

Then I set up the work area. Yesterday, before leaving, I got the area underneath the car covered with a 4mm sheet of plastic. This is thick enough to take some minor abuse and not rip immediately. It was also large enough to cover up the surrounding tools and other stuff in my work area so that they wouldn't get covered in overspray.

There was a customer car adjacent to mine that was in for some work; I covered it in plastic painting drop-cloths and taped it down so it would stay clean and I wouldn't be buying anyone a new paint job. I set up a heavy duty exhaust fan at the garage door entrance of my work-bay, so that overspray would be sucked out of the garage. Now, this whole setup is very amateur and would not be sufficient for doing a paint job on the top of the car. There is too much chance for dust settling on the surface, and things really need to be closed up more for that. However, just for sealing the underside with epoxy primer, it was sufficient.

I then proceeded to wipe down everything again with PPG DX330 solvent. This is the recommended solvent to use before painting. It smells just like mineral spirits and that is probably the major component. The fenders were still greasy and oily in spots, and I simply wasn't able to get all the old undercoat and rustproofing agent removed. Oh well, it is still doing its original job. All the times I have removed the rustproofing agent, the metal underneath has been in good shape. It is just a total mess because it is in a semi-liquid state. I got off some more and had to be satisfied.

For painting, I wore a full length tyvek paint suit with elastic cuffs. Very hot and stuffy, but required to keep paint off my body/clothes, and to avoid isocyanates present in the paint entering into my skin. I chose to wear a full face 3M respirator specifically marketed for automotive refinishing.

While many people today advocate only a supplied air system for automotive painting because of the risk of isocyanate exposure, a respirator with fresh organic vapor cartridges should technically be safe, unless you are in a room totally opaque with overspray fumes. I never smelled any paint while using my respirator today, until I removed it. This was a full face model (how sexy, baby!) that makes you look like you are about to deal with Ebola virus or something, but it isn't made for looks. Please, Please, Please, if you are considering doing any work like this, read up on the dangers of painting with automotive paints, and take necessary safety precautions. You only have one set of lungs. You can always get another paint job. Don't buy expensive paint and then cheap out on personal protection!

I rigged up my Harbor Freight HVLP gun. My arrangement was to feed shop air into a water separator, followed by a coalescing particle filter. Dee had both of these mounted on a portable rig that he loaned me. Then, Exiting this apparatus, I hooked up my paint hose, which led to the gun. Entering the gun, I mounted a "final chance" water separating filter. On top of that was the gun pressure regulator leading into the gun itself. If you are doing any painting, I suggest you have at least this sort of moisture removal set-up. I was able to catch pretty much all moisture with this system.

Pressure on the gun was set to 40 PSI with the trigger pulled. I then took the gun over to my filling station and mixed up 1/2 qt. of DP40. I didn't use any reducer, even though a 2 parts paint : 1 part activator : 1/2 part reducer ratio is permissable. This was on the suggestion of messages I read at http://www.autobodystore.com's Painting and Refinishing Forum. If you are interested in doing any paint or bodywork yourself, do yourself a favor and check it out.

After thorough mixing, I put the paint in the gun. I sprayed the gun on a large piece of cardboard to adjust the fan pattern and amount of paint coming out. Then I moved on to the car. I started by spraying a coat on the floorpan, followed up by the bottom of the battery box. By this point, I had run out of paint, so this time I mixed up a full quart of mixed paint. Dee also came in and said I was spraying out too much paint, and was amazed I hadn't had a major run. We dialed back the amount of paint coming out. Following this, I painted the rear seat area, then the bottom of the engine compartment, and then the fenders. Many parts of the fenders were quite difficult to get inside because of the overall length of the gun configuration. With the paint cup on top, and the regulator and water trap on the bottom, it isn't easy to get into tight spots. Also, without a liner cup system, spraying at extreme angles or upside down is pretty much impossible...the gun just starts spitting and then spraying only air.

After doing a second coat on everywhere but the undersides of the fender areas, I rotated the rotisserie and put the car back upright. Painting the parts of the fenders that I missed was easier in this configuration. I ran out of time, however, and had to stop. I got most of the underside finished, using 1 qt. unreduced DP40LF total. I didn't do the inside of the battery box, the top of the floor pan, or the top/inside of the engine compartment. Those will have to wait for next week.

I cleaned up the paint cup with lacquer thinner, sprayed the gun clean with lacquer thinner, and cleaned the cap and needle. I think I started spraying at 2:30 and I finished at 4:15. Next time will be faster, I was doing everything for the first time today and had to go slowly and carefully.

I didn't even have time to stick around and see the results totally dry, but my first impression was that the job was quite good and I am pleased. After all these months, the bottom of the car has really come together, and this primer job makes it look nice and homogeneous. It is getting much more difficult to pick out the repaired spots, which is exactly the idea!

Prepping Underbody for Primer

More cleaning and prep-work in anticipation of getting the bottom of the car back into epoxy primer. I think I should be able to do it tomorrow if all goes well. Today I continued the cleaning ritual of the wheel wells, as well as wiping down all the new metal that I've installed. Looking at other people's restoration pictures, I feel even more sorry for myself that my car got such a nasty post-factory undercoating job. It seems that other people didn't have nearly as much of a chore removing their undercoating as I have.

I also wiped pretty much everything down with a Scotchbrite pad soaked in OxySolv, to treat any bare steel, as well as convert surface rust present underneath the fenders and in a few other places. Should make a nice pre treatment for the PPG DPLF, and they recommend using a conversion treatment such as this. Tomorrow, I'll wipe the whole underside again with PPG DX330, which is a mild solvent, to clean up the residue from the OxySolv. Then it is time to prime! Full report to follow.

Cleaning Underbody

For the two or three hours I had free at the garage today, I spent the entire time wiping down the underbody with thinners, cleaning out as much remaining greasy undercoating as I was able to. I used the screwdriver to scrape the more stubborn deposits. Maybe I'm being overly cautious, but I want the epoxy primer to adhere to as much of this metal as possible! There is still a good deal of old seam sealer and undercoat crap up in the top of the fender/body seams, and at the edge of the front closing panel/fender seams. I could spend another month just cleaning the underside of the car if I want to get it perfect. I don't have that kind of time, and I've been finding that where I am taking away old "sound" undercoat, the metal underneath looks perfect. Extrapolating from this, there is very little utility gained from removing the remaining undercoat to simply replace it. I have all of the bad portions removed already.

Tomorrow I'm out of town, Thursday morning I hope to finish wiping down the car, laying out a ground cloth, and spraying the DP on the underside and inside. Pictures will of course follow.

On a safety note: I've read and evaluated very carefully the respiratory protection recommended for spraying epoxy primer and then later base and clear coats. All contain isocyanates, which are extremely nasty to breath and cause long term health problems. While supplied air systems may be the best and safest, my understanding of the chemistry of isocyanates reassures me that a brand new, fresh filter mask is safe for limited exposure. I bought a full face mask from 3M that I plan on using for the primer. If I do any more painting with 2K paint or primer in the future, I will of course get new cartridges for it. $100 well spent. You don't skimp on taking care of your health.